Canada flexes Arctic muscles

The RCN has been conducting “Arctic sovereignty patrols” in the nippy region. In July, the RCN planted a flag on Hans Island, and the Canadian defense minister Bill Graham later made an unannounced visit, prompting protests from Copenhagen, which dispatched its own naval ships to region. Before things got ugly, the two countries decided to settle the dispute at the United Nations.

Canada will be spending C$400m on images from the Radarsat 2 satellite, which will be launched next summer:

Passing over the North Pole 14 times daily, recording images of ships, aircraft — even pollution — at a rate of 3,000 square kilometres per second, it will be the linchpin in the Canadian military’s Project Polar Epsilon.

The documents insist that “Polar Epsilon has no connection to the U.S. ballistic missile defence program.”